UPDATE: 9 indicted on sex trafficking charges; operated out of PCB

ZACK McDONALD News Herald Reporter @PCNHzack

Friday

Oct 30, 2015 at 12:51 PMOct 31, 2015 at 11:10 AM

A federal grand jury has indicted nine people in connection with a human trafficking ring being primarily operated out of Panama City Beach but reaching into several Southern states, the U.S. Attorney's Office announced Friday.

PANAMA CITY — A federal grand jury has indicted nine people in connection with a human trafficking ring being primarily operated out of Panama City Beach but reaching into several Southern states, the U.S. Attorney’s Office announced Friday.

The nine defendants charged in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida were arrested Thursday as part of an operation led by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Authorities said they identified a loose organization that coordinated the trafficking of Hispanic women in Southern states for the purpose of prostitution.

The men and women arrested in northern Florida, originating from Mexico and Honduras, are facing a total of 32 counts associated with the case that began with a Panama City Beach kidnapping of a witness in a separate sex trafficking case, officials reported.

Prosecutors allege that homes at 604 Lantana St. in Panama City Beach and 1406 N. 48th Ave. in Pensacola were used as hubs for females — whom the defendants called “meat” — to be housed and then circulated throughout other states, officials wrote in a news release.

The owner of the house at 604 Lantana St. could not be reached for comment Friday. Neighbors said the news was shocking because the three-story, pink-and-white home that overlooks a playground was not conspicuous with activity.

Only five minor events involving law enforcement occurred at the address in the past five years, according to Panama City Beach Police Department reports. In September, the owner, who also owned the nearby Captain Joe’s Chinese restaurant that burned down in 2012, called police to report his tenants had not paid rent, PCBPD reported.

The allegations

Federal agents executed six search warrants Thursday — two in Pensacola, one in Santa Rosa Beach, one in Panama City Beach, one in Montgomery, Ala., and one in Laurel, Miss. Prosecutors allege in the indictment that, between July 2014 and August 2015, the defendants engaged in a conspiracy to transport, harbor and market female illegal aliens for prostitution in Florida, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. Afterward, the defendants wired portions of the prostitution proceeds to their countries of origin, Mexico and Honduras, officials said.

In addition to the conspiracy, the defendants also are charged with: 13 counts of enticing individuals to travel in interstate commerce to engage in prostitution; four counts of money laundering; seven counts of transporting individuals in interstate commerce to engage in prostitution; six counts of harboring an alien for the purpose of prostitution; and illegal entry by a deported alien, officials reported.

A tentative trial date for the defendants in Panama City has been scheduled for Jan. 4 at 8:15 a.m.

The arrests stemmed from a follow-up investigation into a previous kidnapping case in 2013, when a distraught woman walked into a police department in Hattiesburg, Miss., and said she had been kidnapped from a home in the Laguna Beach area of Panama City Beach.

Jacobo “Kiko” Feliciano-Francisco, 32, was arrested and extradited to be tried in the U.S. District Court of Panama City with his victim as a witness against him. He was sentenced to life in prison last October for several charges associated with the woman’s abduction and plans to force her back into the sex trade.

The woman had been a witness in a prior human trafficking case after being forced to work as a prostitute between 2009 and 2011. Her testimony led to 13 convictions in Tennessee and Kentucky on various federal sex-trafficking and prostitution criminal charges.

Following her cooperation with law enforcement, the victim and her family were relocated to Panama City Beach out of concern for their safety. However, federal authorities incidentally were placing her in the same county that eventually would be discovered as a sex trafficking ring’s operational headquarters.

Federal officials declined to comment Friday on whether the ring existed at the time or if there was knowledge of its existence.

Feliciano-Francisco and others tracked down the location of the witness to retaliate for the convictions. Authorities said the victim was in her front yard in Panama City Beach when Feliciano-Francisco and an unidentified man forced her into a car and drove to Feliciano-Francisco’s house in Hattiesburg. Feliciano-Francisco sexually assaulted the woman and planned to force her to work as a prostitute in Louisiana.

However, the kidnapping victim escaped through a bathroom window that evening and went to the Hattiesburg Police Department. Police went to the house and arrested Feliciano-Francisco.

Feliciano-Francisco was sentenced to life after being convicted of kidnapping, retaliating against a witness, conspiracy, and transportation of an individual in interstate commerce for prostitution.

The men and women arrested Thursday and charged with 32 counts in the indictment could each face up to 20 years in prison if convicted, officials said.

In a similar operation dubbed “Operation Safe Haven,” federal authorities arrested 29 people in eight states, including Florida, on Thursday and rescued 15 potential victims in raids on brothels and homes throughout the Southeast. Officials said they expect additional arrests to follow.

The two cases are not directly connected, but they could have a “tenuous overlap” among the suspects arrested, according to ICE spokeswoman Tammy Spicer. She said the main distinction in the Panama City Beach case was its origins in a 2013 kidnapping case.

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